Urologists Practice Spotting Tumors With VR

BOSTON (CBS) – Virtual reality is being used in healthcare more, and a local company is using the technology to help doctors identify hard-to-see tumors in the bladder.

Almost 80,000 Americans are diagnosed with bladder cancer every year. To find bladder tumors, a urologist looks directly at the inside of the bladder using a cystoscope, a small tube with a camera and light attached.

Cystoscopes are equipped with technology called narrow band imaging. (WBZ-TV)

Some tumors are harder to find. But to make it easier, many cystoscopes are equipped with technology called narrow band imaging (NBI).

“What NBI does is it changes that light so that it turns it to a bluish green color that allows you to see cancerous lesions a little bit easier and studies show quite a bit easier,” says Dan Greenwald, CEO and Chief Creative Officer of White Rhino, a Lexington-based marketing firm.

White Rhino was hired by Olympus, a company known for their cameras, but also their cystoscopies, to help familiarize urologists with NBI.

“We created a virtual reality experience that allows a urologist to go inside a human bladder, turn on NBI and see how much easier it is to find lesions compared to white light,” explains Greenwald.